Seriously considering dropping the hobby

[Desdichado]

I dunno about that. The ERB stuff seems to fit right in. John Carter is a character any fighter can aspire to be... and have the feats to make it fairly spectacular.

Ugh. I was thinking to myself that the ERB stuff was the least like D&D of all the things listed, personally. That said, I've also seen better ERB-like stuff before, even in d20. Iron Lords of Jupiter comes to mind.

I've burned out on several occasions. Like the earlier posters however, I am in the boat too where I've reached the wasteland of gaming. I'm 35 and have kids, a life, a job. It's really hard to relate to people who are the opposite when it comes to a gaming group.

Maybe I'm lucky then. My group is all made of up guys who are early to late 30s, professional and with one exception, have at least one kid, often more (I'm leading the pack there with 4.) Why do you have to game with a bunch of twentysomething college students still, or whoever it is you game with? If you live in any kind of halfway decent metropolitan area, you probably have enough folks like you who game to put together a group. I ended up organizing a Detroit gameday a few years ago where I found much of my current group. A few of them were ENWorlders, and they showed up, bringing their gamer friends with them.

 

[Chainsaw Mage]

I ended up organizing a Detroit gameday a few years ago where I found much of my current group. A few of them were ENWorlders, and they showed up, bringing their gamer friends with them.

That's what's tres cool about a huge city like Detroit. I live in a city of 50,000 people, five horus away from the nearest large city. :\

 

[Desdichado]

That's what's tres cool about a huge city like Detroit. I live in a city of 50,000 people, five horus away from the nearest large city. :\

Well, it's the only cool thing. Something to make up for the fact that the rest of our existence is sorta like living in a left over set from a Mad Max movie that's been frozen over.



Says the guy who lives in a nice, peaceful suburb nearly 45 minutes from Detroit proper.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

The only problem I have is that reading stuff like Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, Edgar Rice Burroughs (I don't like Moorcock, so I won't be rereading anything of his) always brings home how far D&D has wandered from the tone and feel of those stories. They don't encourage me to play D&D, they encourage me to find some other system.

I know exactly what you mean, and I agree. Not that you can't do classic swords and sorcery with 3E, but you'd need to do some serious overhauling to get the right feel.

I agree with you on Moorcock, too. I was a huge Moorcock fan back in jr. high school. Recently, I've been re-reading a lot of my old favorites (including Leiber, Howard, Burroughs, etc), and Moorcock just doesn't hold up.

(Another author that's worth reading is A. Merrit. I just enoyed a re-read of Dwellers in the Mirage.)

 

[MerricB]

For anyone feeling burnt out, here's my solution: go read one or two books of Conan short stories. I picked up a book last night on a whim, and it did a wonderful job of reminding me about the essence of unadorned sword & sorcery fun.

Heh. I wonder if my reaction to doing that would be to hurl the book across the room? I read a lot of books, and my tastes have really changed to the more elaborate stories - Steven Erikson and Lois McMaster Bujold in particular. I do know I find it really hard to read Leiber these days. (I could really go on a nostalgia kick with ERB, however).

I've never been burnt out of gaming altogether, but I've certainly burnt out on certain _forms_ of gaming. After a heavy spell of RPGing in the early nineties, I defected to Magic for several years, and eventually came back to some of my best D&D campaigns ever.

Without doubt - and I really feel for you, Dykstrav - being around players who irritate you (and worse) makes everything so much harder. I've been very lucky; I play with a lot of really nice people. I've had experiences with not-so-nice people, and they can really poison whatever you're doing.

Best wishes! (and Cheers!)